Merchants, vendors, or providers, of goods, products, or services, lose millions of dollars each year as the result of non-payment of their receivables. Non-payment of receivables can result from credit card fraud, charge card fraud, debit card fraud, cyber-shoplifting, charge-backs, bank fraud, check fraud, the stopping of issued checks, checks returned for insufficient funds, and other causes or activities.
Merchants, vendors, or providers, of goods, services, or products, have long experienced credit card fraud, charge card fraud, debit card fraud, cyber-shoplifting (such as when individuals deny making an on-line or non-face-to-face transaction involving credit cards, charge cards, debit cards, or any other advancement of credit), charge-backs (which occur when a credit, charge, or debt, services issuing entity or bank forces the merchant, vendor, or provider, to pay back funds paid thereto along with possibly imposing charge-back fees), bank fraud, check fraud, the stopping of issued checks, checks returned for insufficient funds, and other activities.
With the tremendous increase in telephone-based transactions as well as on-line transactions, such as those occurring on, or over, the Internet and/or the World Wide Web, risks of non-payment have become even greater. These non-payment risks have resulted from the non-face-to-face nature of telephone or on-line transactions which involve credit cards, charge cards, debit cards, or their respective accounts, which do not allow merchants, vendors, or providers, the opportunity to verify and/or otherwise ensure that they are entering into transactions with the true account holder or account owner.
As a result, many merchants, vendors, or providers, are having their charges or receivables challenged, disputed, and/or denied, by dishonest individuals. This has resulted in charge-backs to the merchants, vendors, or providers, which entail having a bank or issuer associated with the account holder's or the account owner's account impose a return of funds. Other fees may also be imposed on the respective merchants, vendors, or providers.
As a result, the respective merchants, vendors, or providers, can lose in a number of ways. They lose the funds received, they may not have the goods, products, or services, returned, they may be charged charge-back fees, and/or they can experience opportunity costs (i.e. expended employee time and/or company resources) in dealing with the disputed charges.
Activities by dishonest individuals, in ordering a good, product, or service, only to later deny making the order or deny entering into the transaction, so as to avoid payment, while not returning the respective goods, products, or services, has come to be known as “cyber-shoplifting” and can cost merchants, vendors, or providers, millions of dollars annually. Losses which result from these and other forms of credit card fraud, charge card fraud, debit card fraud, bank fraud, check fraud, the stopping of issued checks, checks returned for insufficient funds, and other activities result in even greater losses to merchants, vendors, or providers.
Losses to merchants, vendors, providers, any of their banks, any of their respective vendors or providers, and/or any of their insurers, if applicable, in the long run, can ultimately get passed on to, and can be shared by, all of us.
No system or method exists which can provide the means for allowing merchants, vendors, or providers, to protect themselves from losses or risks of losses which can result from credit card fraud, charge card fraud, debit card fraud, cyber-shoplifting, charge-backs, bank fraud, check fraud, the stopping of issued checks, checks returned for insufficient funds, and other activities.